Free The Last Place God Made by Jack Higgins Page A

above the cold ashes of what had been a considerable fire, the flesh peeling from his skull. The smell was nauseating, so bad that I could almost taste it.
     
     
Alberto beat the flies away with a stick and took a close look. "Father Conte's servant," he said. "An Indian from down-river. Poor devil, they must have decided he'd earned something special."
     
     
Hannah turned on me, his face like the wrath of God. "And you were feeling sorry for the bastards."
     
     
Colonel Alberto cut in quickly. "Never mind that now. Your private differences can wait till later. We'll split up to save time and don't forget I need identity bracelets. Another day in this heat and it will be impossible to recognise anyone."
     
     
I took the medical centre, an eerie experience because every-thing was in perfect order. Beds turned down as if awaiting patients, mosquito nets hooked up neatly. The only unusual thing was the smell which led me to the small operating theatre where I found two more nuns, their bodies already decompos-ing. Like the one at the end of the jetty they seemed to have been clubbed to death. I managed to find their identity discs without too much trouble and got out
     
     
Alberto was emerging from one of the bungalows. I gave him the discs and he said, "That makes ten in all; there should be a dozen. And there's no sign of Father Conte."
     
     
"All they've done is kill people," I said. "Everything else is in perfect order. It doesn't make sense. I'd have expected them to put a torch to the buildings, just to finish things off."
     
     
"They wouldn't dare," he said. "Another superstition. The spirits of those they have killed need somewhere to live."
     
     
Hannah moved out of the church and called to us. When we joined him he was shaking with rage. Father Conte lay flat on his back just inside the door, an arrow in his throat. From his position, I'd say he had probably been standing on the porch facing his attackers when hit. His eyes had gone, probably one of the vultures which I had noticed perched on the church roof. Most terrible thing of all, his cassock had been torn away and his chest hacked open with amachete.
     
     
Hannah said, "Now why would they do a thing like that?" 'They admired his courage. They imagine that by eating his heart, they take some of his bravery into themselves."
     
     
Which just about finished Hannah off and he looked capable of anything as Alberto said, "There are two nuns missing. We know they're not inside anywhere so we'll split up again and work our way down through the mission in a rough line. They're probably face-down in the grass somewhere."
     
     
But they weren't, or at least we couldn't find them. When we gathered again at the jetty, Hannah said, "Maybe they went into the water like the first one we found?"
     
     
"All the others were either in their middle years or older," Alberto said. "These two, the two who are missing, are much younger than that. Twenty or twenty-one. No more."
     
     
"You think they've been taken alive?" I asked him.
     
     
"It could well be. Like many tribes, they like to freshen the blood occasionally. They frequently take in young women, keep them until the baby is born then murder them."
     
     
"For God's sake, let's get out of here," Hannah said. "I've had about all I can take." He turned and hurried to the end of the jetty and boarded the canoe.
     
     
There wasn't much more we could do anyway so we joined him and paddled back downstream. The journey was com-pletely uneventful. When we drifted in to the jetty at the edge of thecampo, Lima was waiting for us looking more nervous than ever.
     
     
"Everything all right here?" Alberto demanded.
     
     
Lima said anxiously, "I don't know, Colonel." He nodded towards the green curtain of jungle. "You know what it's like. You keep imagining that someone is standing on the other side, watching you."
     
     
Forest foxes started to bark in several different directions at once. Alberto said